K-State professor's Web video to premiere at national conference

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Source: Michael Wesch, 785-532-6866, mwesch@k-state.edu
Editor's note: Wesch is not attending the conference.
News release prepared by: Sara Shellenberger, 785-532-6415, media@k-state.edu

Thursday, March 8, 2007

K-STATE PROFESSOR'S WEB VIDEO TO PREMIERE AT NATIONAL CONFERENCE

MANHATTAN -- The final version of Michael Wesch's video "Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us," will premiere at the Technology Entertainment and Design Conference today in Monterey, Calif.

Wesch, assistant professor of anthropology at Kansas State University, created the video to explain Web 2.0, the "second wave" of Web-based services allowing people to network, share and collaborate online.

The rough-draft video, posted Jan. 31, became the most popular video on the Internet Feb. 5, according to Technorati.com, and the No. 1 featured video on YouTube Feb. 9. It was featured in more than 5,000 blogs and has been viewed by more than 1.6 million people on YouTube, an online video-sharing site.

"What is most amazing about this is that in just three days I was able to create something in my basement in St. George, Kan., which is now reaching the greatest thinkers and most powerful people in the world," Wesch said. "The message of the video is in some ways overshadowed by the remarkable journey of the video itself. The journey proves the point of the video in a way the video itself could only hint at."

The Technology Entertainment and Design Conference is an invitation-only event bringing together the most creative and innovative minds in the world. This year's speakers include former President Bill Clinton, entrepreneur Richard Branson, academics Lawrence Lessig and E.O. Wilson, singer-songwriter Paul Simon, and the founders of Google and of YouTube.

The final version of the video will simultaneously premiere online.

While serving as the guest editor of a special issue of Visual Anthropology Review, "Beyond e-Text," Wesch created "Web 2.0...The Machine is Us/ing Us" to describe what can be done with new technology, such as blogs, wikis, video editing, Web feeds and social networking sites. To see the premiere of the final version of the video, go to http://www.mediatedcultures.net/ksudigg